Turkeys

Well if I had any doubts about wanting to kill myself, Thanksgiving removed them. This isn't going to be one of those rants about how effed up my family is. Frankly, everything was pretty nice. My sister made a nice turkey with all the trimmin's as they say. It was a generous spread and a nice time. My brother-in-law smoked a turkey to death. The guy needs to stop.

But the deal with social gatherings is that I just cannot tolerate being around people any more. Social situations just fuck me up. 99% of the human race annoys the shit out of me. They are banal, pointless wastes of space whose only contribution to conversation is usually "did you see that show last night" or "the only good beer is Busch Light." I've gotten to the point where I can really enjoy being around my family and then the rules change and I have to hang around my brother-in-law's family.

They are nice enough people, but I've got crushing depression and feel worse around other human beings. But the rest of the race could at least try to be interesting. The only question anyone has to ask me is "where are you working now?" Like that says anything about me. Ask me something revealing like "if you could kill someone and get away with it, would you?" "What's the wierdest thing you ever ate?" "Have you ever jerked off while driving?" Something original or at least probing. All these people have to say in their own subtle way is that life is not worth living.

My nephew has turned into a typical 13-year-old asshole to boot. For my birthday he got me nothing, not even a card or a "happy birthday." For Thanksgiving he topped that by not saying one word to me the whole day. It wasn't deliberate either, I'm sure of that. He just wasn't interested.

Whogivesashit.com

Santa, Idaho voted this week to change its name to SecretSanta.com, Idaho in exchange for cash, according to a Reuters article. I was very briefly thinking about ranting out a little screed on the evils of corporatism and how businesses rob us of our individuality, but then I figured fuck it. Towns have always been labeled by whoever had the cash to name them. Ames, Dodge, Springfield, Polk, and on and on. If you have a railroad running through your state, you've got towns, counties, roads and parks bearing these names because some rich asshole that nobody remembers wanted his name on everything at the height of the rail boom. If a bunch of hicks in the sticks want to change their town's name to just the latest fad for some money, I'm not gonna moan about it any more than I do the fact that Hershey, PA is named after the guy who set his chocolate factory in the middle of a cornfield. Maybe some other day I'd give a damn, but right now, nothing surprises me.

What IS the point?

I've been contemplating suicide a lot lately. Not in the deep funk of years past, which was as deep and as funky as a George Clinton groove, but in the inevitable light of reason. Our Japanese brothers, our Roman predecessors took a rational view to suicide. They'd kill themselves because they had to for political reasons, issues of honor and to protect their families. A Japanese author in the 80s wrote a how to book on the subject. Guns aren't as common in Japan so a good way to commit suicide with a minimum of pain is always a bestseller. He included a good rationalization at the front of his book, too, claiming that there was really no good reason to stay alive. Life is boring, cruel and ultimately a waste of time if you arent digging it. This raised a few eyebrows in the West, but only because we expect people who would be better off dead to stay alive and dig ditches for us. If eveyone in the West who was miserable or just unhappy with their lots in life killed themselves, more middle management types would actually have to work for a living.

Rationally speaking, I've made MY contribution already. I'm not happy, probably won't be happy any time soon. I'm chronically depressed, fat, diabetic and getting worse in every possible way. Most people I know would feel better about having known me than they do knowing me. I'm a good person to remember, but not a good person to live with. So why not?

Isn't that nice?

I gotta mean hard-on for a certain kind of person
in this world. Nicey-niceys. People whose experiences
in life as well as their personalities are so mellow and
sweet that they view niceness as a meaningful character
trait, a virtue, something of substance to which good
and decent people should aspire.

I hate their guts.

I admire self-sacrifice and decency. I think everyone
should strive to be good. But no one of any intelligence
should ever confuse niceness with any of this. Nice, as a
term, is practically meaningless. Be nice, act nice, Oh, he's
nice! What does any of it mean? Does nice mean that someone
is good or just meek? It's so non-descript. The only thing I can
really say for certain about the use of the term nice is that
it seems to be a good word to use when you don't know what
the hell else to say. Play nice means don't beat the shit out
of each other but keep quiet. Children could play nice until
you found one of them turning blue in a dry cleaning bag.
People who are nice usually are also quite stupid, vacuous,
uncommitted and not worth talking to. It is entirely possible to
be a very nice person who just doesn't happen to see all the
evil in the world. I bet there were a lot of very nice people living
in the shadow of Dachau and Belsen, Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
"Oh I'm sure their just having a big barbecue, those German boys
do love a good cookout." After all, only a bad person assumes
the worst.

Nice people have always been my bane. It was always very nice
people who stood by and watched while I was abused or on the run.
I had a very nice teacher who kept me locked up in newspaper
class working on a story because she knew I was skipping school
in order to find a place to stay because I had run away from home.
Some very nice people didn't seem to notice, though they were a
few feet away, that my fifth grade gym teacher was abusing the shit
out of the kids in my school. They were probably torn though since
he was black, they wouldn't want to be called racists after all by stopping
child abuse.

Nice people can go fuck themselves.

Consumer goods ... as far as the eye can see

I went to the new Mall of the Bluffs Hy-Vee
this morning at 6:30. It was a trip. For one
thing, everything in the store was completely
perfectly lined up. The cans, the produce, the
toilet paper, the magazines ... everything was
facing front, evenly spaced and numbered.
Even in the produce section you had six green
peppers next to six each of yellow and red.
Walking down the aisles, the colors of
consumerism were blinding. Normally,
all those cans and bags and bottles are
just askew enough to create a sort of
nondescript melange. The way this store's
laid out it looks like a store in a movie
making fun of consumerism. It was funny,
but it actually hurt the eyes to look at it.

Then I had the salad bar for breakfast.

I went back around 6:30 that night because
this is a really good salad bar, especially for
around five bucks. After one whole day of
shopping, the pop aisle had been all mussed
up but the soup and canned goods aisle was
still perfect. The produce wasn't fucked up either.
I don't think this was because they had realigned
everything all day long, I think it was because no
one had been in to buy those things.

Then I had the soup and salad bar for dinner.

Like pulling teeth

I was just reminded tonight of something
that happened to me long, long ago in a
county far, far away. My buddy Danny
is getting his wisdom teeth pulled Tuesday
and he was wondering how hard it is to pull
teeth out of someone's head.

During the end of my baby teeth days, I was
spending the night at my grandma's house in
scenic, rural Harrison County somewhere
between Logan and Neola. I had this tooth
that was "just dangling by a thread." It drove
my grandmother nuts. She was not one of those
bake a batch of cookies and tell you a story about
the good old days grandmothers. She was one of
those tell there are ghosts upstairs so stay out of
the attic and make fun of you because you were
fat type grandmothers. Oddly enough, this is one
of my more fond memories of her.

Anywho, Francis gets tired of watching me play
with this tooth and decides she's gonna yank it.
"It's just hanging there, you won't even feel it,
you big baby." I didn't want her to do it but she
pretty much insisted. Maybe she was afraid I'd
choke on it in my sleep, but I doubt it. She never
said as much any way. She sits me in one of her
canary yellow kitchen chairs, the vinyl kind with
the metal tube legs. She leans my head back, grabs
my tooth with a solid grip, fingers wrapped in a red
handkerchief. This grip was hardcore. She was
mostly right. One good solid extremely painful
yank and that tooth came out of my head
accompanied by a blood flow that seemed kind of
excessive considering my tooth had been just
hanging there by a thread.

I was a bit in shock, the experience hurt more
than I expected and my mouth was full of that
salty irony blood taste. I tongued where the missing
tooth was supposed to be and was more than a bit
surprised to find that not only was it not gone it was
just as dangly as it had been previously.

I started screaming what is known in my family as
"bloody murder." Francis had a chagrined look on her
face. I think she knew she wasn't going to live this one
down for a few years. She wasn't even sure if that tooth
was a baby tooth or not so the damage might have been
permanent. She felt kind of bad and did that sort of half-
assed apologize while trying not to laugh sort of thing
while I swished salt water around in my mouth sticking
my tongue in the freshly made hole in my gums. This
was just about the only time I ever had the upper hand
on Francis so I was pretty glad to make all of it that I could.

So these days when people ask about funny grandma
stories or painful childhood injury stories, I pull out this
little gem and sigh thinking about the good old days.

Turning conservative

I'm a big lefty. I believe in peace, love and
understaning ... all that shit. But even so
there is something inside of me that is
attracted to fascism. I am intellectually
opposed to the death penalty but deep
down in the primitive part of my brain
where the ape man lives and dreams of
tearing apart spider monkeys for fun, I
love it when someone who deserves it fries.
Some piece of crap of kidnaps and violates a
child isn't someone I want to keep alive deep
down in my heart. The Tarzan in me'd like
beat them to death with the thin end of a pool
cue. Take my time, really enjoy it over the
course of a couple days.

This does not create the psychic disconnect
in me that it once did. I have come to realize
that liberalism is at least partially a romantic
notion and romantics are often disappointed.
We'll never get the utopia were fighting for
and we get tired of fighting. We're like a bunch
of jilted lovers who turn from love to hate quickly
because both are rooted in passion.

This is what makes neo-cons possible. After
years of pragmatically insisting on setting the
standard for the world, these disappointed
romantics want the world to either be a better
place or else as though we can bomb Baghdad
and all of Iraq into loving democracy and The
American Way.

I've got a low frustration threshold to start with
so it really wont surprise me if one day I go over
the fence. Most of my friends are already leaning
that way because they've got money, kids and
everything to lose.

Chicken and Rice Mama Jerrett style

one cup rice, uncooked
one can Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup
one emptied can Campbell's Cream of Chicken
soup full of water
one packet Lipton Onion soup
various chicken pieces (fat makes this better)

mix it all except the chicken then place the chicken
on top, bake at around 350 for an hour and a half
and enjoy

variations: Mama Jerrett never varied this, but
mushroom soup works well, chopped onions are
good, fresh mushrooms don't suck and in a pinch
one doesn't have to add the chicken

Bless this

I can't stand people who say God Bless You!
when other people sneeze. I dislike even more
people who insist that you say it to them. I was
raised to believe that if I had a disgusting semi-
voluntary biological event occur (burping, farting,
coughing, pissing my pants and, yes, sneezing)
that the proper thing for me to do was say excuse
me, not turn it into a sad attempt to get other
people to pity me and say hosannahs over me.

I had this girlfriend once about about three years
ago. She was a sad, desperate spinster-in-the-
making with about five married sisters. Her clock
was ticking so loud I almost couldn't hear the crazy
in everything she said. Almost. One night, she tells
me she has a "deal-breaker." You know, one of
those little things that if a man doesn't have or do
make him an unsuitable partner for a woman. I'm
thinking criminal record, B.O., yellow toenails,
homosexual tendencies, communist sympathies,
a tail or something really outrageous.

No, this chick's "deal-breaker" was when the person
you're going out with doesn't voluntarily say "excuse
me" after you sneeze. She didn't even want to tell me
because if she told me then I couldn't do it spontaneously.
She was in luck , of a sort.

"What a coincindence," I said, "mine, too!"
"Really?"
"Yeah, except I can't stand it when a woman I go out
with insists that I say it. People should really excuse
themselves after they sneeze, I mean, it isn't like you
are dying or just got done confessing your sins ... come
on."

I meant it too. All the women my age got that stupid
"deal-breaker" from the movie "Singles" anyway. It
isn't even original. If you are such a need freak that
you have to have people acknowledge you with sympathy
just because you blew snot and germs into the air in a
fine mist, then fuck off. I don't need sex that bad, frankly.
No one does.

Moral Absolutes

Killing a homeless person in a van by the river
just to achieve an erection is wrong.

Having group sex in your parents living room
while they sleep upsstairs just to check off
two activities on your "Purity List" is wrong.

Masturbating to a borrowed copy of Elric is wrong,
especiallly if the guy who lent it to you catches
you in the act.

Telling someone who asks you to watch your language
at the grocery store "Fuck you and your kid, lady"
is wrong. Sorry about that.

Getting high and making an ass out of yourself at a
play is wrong, but it feels so right.

Soaking a wart in your roommate's drinking glass
is wrong.

Littering is wrong.

Not washing your hands after going to the bathroom (1 or 2)
is wrong.

Prefering Taco Bell to Taco John's or any other kind of
Mexican food is wrong.

Individually-wrapped cheese slices ... wrong.

Decaf. Wrong.

Neo-cons are wrong.

Sackless dems are wrong.

Intelligent design taught in school very wrong.

More about geeks

The average computer geek, much like the average
sci fi geek, likes to consider himself to be a
person of above average intelligence. Computer
geeks think tht because they can find shit on the
Internet and talk endlessly about shit that only
they find of interest that they must, of necessity,
be smarter than the average bear.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of autistics in this
country and indeed the world over who are are actually
quite gifted at tasks one might otherwise assume required
great intelligence. Playing the piano, counting ceiling
tiles (many and instantly), memorizing sports stats,
summarizing soap opera plots, telling jokes and on and on.

Chimpanzees can be trained to ride bikes. Parrots can talk.
Dogs can fetch sticks. Cats can poop in a box. No one tries
to make us doff our hats to them. Most geeks I know have the
interpersonal skills of a cardboard cutout. Dogs have better
manners, chimps are more personable, parrots are more interesting
conversationalists and cats are more genuinely interested in
other creatures ... and cleaner.

Texas Funeral

Burying someone alive after getting them drunk or
otherwise sedating them is known as a Texas Funeral. A
Comombian Necktie is when someone cuts your throat and
pulls your tonguen through the hole. Most of the
terrible ways to kill someone do not have really cool
names. Burning someone's house down while they are
still inside, for example, isn't known as Hotboxing,
though it could be. Sticking an axe in someone's head
isn't called Giving them the Paul Bunyan Treatment.

Love Kills

In the future, robots like this one from
Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," will replace all
human contact in your life. From rising to
resting, from work to love and play, "automatic
for the people" will be be the new way.

Get used to it.

What I'm listening to tonight: Promises in the Dark

Pat Benatar

Probably the best part about being a girl in the 1980s was Pat Benatar. It was widelly known
at the time that she was a classically-trained singer. That means she could do opera as well as
rock out. In fact, it was the opera that allowed her to rock out. Here are the lylrics to one of my
favs, "Promises in the Dark." Buy it or something.

Never again, isn’t that what you said?
You’ve been through this before
An’ you swore this time you’d think with your head
No one, would ever have you again
And if takin’ was gonna get done
You’d decide where and when
Just when you think you got it down
Your heart securely tied and bound
They whisper, promises in the dark

Armed and ready, you fought love battles in the night
But too many opponents made you weary of the fight
Blinded by passion, you foolishly let someone in
All the warnings went off in your head
Still you had to give in

Just when you think you got it down
Resistance nowhere to be found
They whisper, promises in the dark

But promises, you know what they’re for
It sounds so convincing, but you heard it before
Cause talk is cheap and you gotta be sure
And so you put up your guard
And you try to be hard
But your heart says try again

You desperately search for a way to conquer the fear
No line of attack has been planned to fight back the tears
Where brave and restless dreams are both won and lost
On the edge is where it seems it’s well worth the cost
Just when you think you got it down
Your heart in pieces on the ground
They whisper, promises in the -- dark

JABBERWOCKY by Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

McRib is back, bitch!

I hate McDonald's on philosophical grounds. I know they've
got something in their food most people wouldn't eat if they
knew those ingredients were there in the first place. They
make it so you can taste a 1/10 of a pound beef patty
underneath all that bun, ketchup, mustard, pickle and
rehydrated onion. Something is rotten in Denmark.

But I nearly wet 'em the other day when I was driving
down the street. I saw the sign (and it opened up my eyes):

McRib is back!

I nearly careened into oncoming traffic. For as much as I
despise corporatism, greed, bad food, I cannot deny that
the McRib is a helluva good sammich. As far as a cultural
event, it is right up there with St. Patty's Day, Guy Faulkes
Day and the Second Coming.

That might be overstating things a bit ... unless you're Jewish.
Then you would have no problem comparing the McRib to Jesus.
For any number of reasons.

Geekin'

I previously reported that one of the dildos I work
with left early one night because "his chemo was
making him sick." I said I felt a little bad for thinking
him a dildo. Well, it has come to light he was lying
about taking chemo. It stands to reason, really. He
would have to be the fattest, hairiest cancer patient
in the history of fat, hairy cancer patients. He is, in
fact, one of those soul sucking vampire bitches I've
mentioned in other posts. A two-balled bitch as my
old friend Randy Noreen would have called him. He
is a gamer and an attention seeker who will talk any
amount of shit just to be talking. Other lies he's told
include having a daughter at Harvard, being in the
same Odin-worshipping clan as some skinhead who
used to work here, having a girlfriend and that his
dad was killed in "the war" ... and that just to win
an argument about how powerful satellites are. I.E.
"Oh yeah, well if the government has satellites that
powerful then why did my dad have to die in the
war."

People like this could make any right- to- lifer favor
abortion on demand and euthanasia by popular vote.

Bigmouth Strikes Again

The older I get, the less willing I am to tolerate
the rudeness and thoughtlessness of those younger
than me. Even a 27-year-old who talks twice as
loud and twice as fast as his words require gets
under my skin faster than an earwhig on meth.

"Fuck, dude, you know what I'm sayin'? It was like
'shiiit,' right, dude? Fuck."

ALL RIGHT ALREADY! God ... DAMN IT!

People talk too much any way. No one has anything
worth saying and the more they talk and spew their
pitiful little minds out into the atmosphere where I'm
just trying to sit in a bit of silence, the more I want to
just shut their God damn mouths permanently. I try
not to say anything, but it's funny that if I accidentallly
drop my pop on my desk while some endlessly drawn
out blabfest is going on, I get, "I'm not bothering you,
am I GREG?" No, not at all, but funny that you think
you might have.

Idiot Savant

This guy I work with is going on about how he doesn't
eat glucose or chloroplasts. That's rabbit food. "I've
never eaten a tomato to my recollection." I swear to
God some of these geeks couldn't stop talking if you
kidnapped their mommies and threated to keep her for
ever and ever. What find of fucking moron is proud of
not eating vegetables ever? Who takes a stand against
glucose?

People are people... it's too bad really

Anyone who knows me knows two things: One, I like
cheese... a lot. It's the food that makes everything
else taste better. Two, I am down with the rainbow
revolution. They're here, they're queer, get used to
it already.

But I am a bit of a throwback when I have phone
contact with people named Jenny or Victoria who are
clearly men, at least they were when they were born. I
don't know if they are pre-operative transexuals or
what, but when I'm talking to them in the course of my
job, calling them ma'am (which is what they are really
getting off on making the call last about twice as long as
necessary when they don't really have anything to complain
about) it's effin' annoying, buddy. Should I start calling them
sir just to put them off a bit? I think so. Perhaps a
little "accident" now and again will make them feels
they aren't pulling off the whole "live as a woman for
a year then get the operation" thing.

I know this tranvestite in my home town named Cindy.
Cindy is probably 6'4" and a 60-year-old grandfather
with hands the size of a first-baseman's mitt. Cindy
looks not a little bit like J.R.R. Tolkien with a
blonde wig. Pant suit, skirt, sweater or jogging suit,
Cindy looks like a dude in a wig, she isn't fooling
anybody. And that's OK, but what surprises me is just
how delusional she is. If you are introduced to Cindy,
she tries to shake your hand like a lady, you know,
mostly with the ends of her massive, hotdog
sized-fingers.

Of her inner circle, Cindy asks, "do you think anyone
suspects I'm a man?" Hell yes they do, if by anyone
you mean EVERYone. It's like me asking my friends to
constantly tell me how thin I look. Forget about it,
it ain't happening. I would only ask to make them
uncomfortable.

People are a curious lot. And of course, by curious
(pun intended) I mean needy deluded fucking idiots.

Crazy shit

It occurred to me the other day, probably during some
commercial or other, that no sense is more intimate and
mysterious than smell. When you smell someone, you are
actually taking a part of them inside yourself invisibly
through the air. NO color, no sound, just smell. And the
way each smell affects you is unique. There is no third-party
confirmation, it's totally subjective.

You actually take a part of someone inside yourself when
you taste them, too, but that's called cannibalism and doesn't
have the same mystique.

Smell evokes memory more completely than any other
sense as well. You could be 40 years old and catch a
whiff of Bubble Yum mixed with Chanel and instantly
think about the moment you entered puberty thanks to
your fifth grade teacher's way of writing on the
chalkboard ... even if you haven't thought about Ms.
Buttonschon in decades. Madre de Dios, but that woman
could erase fast.

In my 13th summer, I used to slather my pits with Old
Spice and read Conan novels every day for three
months. So imagine my surprise when, at 18, my college
roommate decided to forego his shower and OD'd on the
OS. I ran into him in the hall and was suddenly
transported to a realm of high adventure. I didn't
recall my smelly little room or myself lying on my bed
reading. I had this instant, compressed recollection
of months of Cimmerian thrills. My roommate was lucky
I didn't take his damn head off like that guy in "The
Tower of the Elephant." I'm serious, it was a rush of
adrenaline I hadn't felt since I was an adolescent.

When I was a little kid and I'd get sick, I'd lay in
my parents dirty clothes pile. My father worked as a
welder for a living and has always hade a pretty
unique, if not pungent, bouqet. Laying there in what
most people would have defined as a pretty heady
stank, I would feel as comforted as if my mother was
rubbing my tummy. Maybe even more so. Of course, my
mother would usually try to roust me out of the
clothes. She knew what sins were in that pile, but
when you're four and your stomach hurts and you take a
nap in a big stinky pile of cloths and feel better,
you don't care about poo poo undies and sweaty
t-shirts.

I'll tell you something else for naught, to this day
I'm not bothered by my dad's BO. I guess I'm like a
dog that way. Just because the odor is "not good" by
all known social standards, doesn't make it bad. I
can't imagine that Kate Moss's pits reek so bad I
wouldn't want to give them a whiff. A dog's nose is so
sensitive it will take great pleasure from smelling
your nether regions just to see where you've been and
what you've been up to.

To a dog, smell is powerful way to of sensing someone
else. Shit isn't a bad smell, it's just another way of
figuring somemone out. This guy eats a lot of meat,
I'm sticking with him. This guy is sick, be cautious.
Dogs can probably even tell if you' crazy from the way
your crap smells. Why not? We can tell by looking at
someone or listening to them rant. Why not because
their shit is crazy smelling?

Old School Onion Soup

For about three months in the Fall of 1987 I was
on a starvation diet. Actually, it was more of a stupidity
diet. I was at Iowa State and my student loans were
late. Every time I went in to check to see if they were in,
I was told next week. So instead of getting a job, I figured
I'd wait just one more week, then another, then another.
Finally, a couple months had gone by. I was living off popcorn
for a while. For less than a buck, you can eat pretty good for
few days. At one point, I was down to a bag of onions. I
figured if I ate one onion a day, I could make it another week.
I would boil the onion lightlly in a bit of salty water. I would
then eat the onion and drink the onion flavored water. Of course,
this sounds pretty nasty. Truth be told, it was pretty nasty. But
when you are hungry enough by 6 p.m. every night, that onion
sounds pretty good.

One night, I got home all eager to eat my last onion, when I
discovered, much to my horror, that my roommate, Dan, had
taken my last onion and sliced it up for his ham sandwiches. I was
pissed. At least, I was pissed until I decided it was fair dinkum for me
to dig into his ham. You start eating ham after you haven't had any
meat for a month or two and nothing... NOTHING tastes quite so good.

By the time my student loan had come in, I was having visions. It was
truly religious. Things began to occur to me, enlightenment felt as though
it were in my reach. That evaporated about the time I took the first bite
of the first pizza I ordered. Hot cheese and sausage will do that.

I don't hate onions though. You'd think I might, but they are one of my
favorite ingredients when it comes to adding flavor to omelettes, grits,
pizza, tacos, soups, sauces. I buy them by the bag and use them all. Maybe
it's the French in me.